


Long Way Home

by skyenotdaisy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of suicide attempt, Skyeward - Freeform, Skyeward Secret Santa, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenotdaisy/pseuds/skyenotdaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A soulmate mark was rare. Only a few people in the world actually possessed them. The nuns were so happy for her, while Skye was so confused. A soulmate mark? She had a soulmate? There was someone out there who she was destined to be with? Eventually someone was going to want to be with her? What did those symbols even mean? </p><p>At least one of those questions were answered as one of the nuns had spent some time in China. Apparently the lines were a symbol for protection. The nun told her that meant her soulmate was a great protector. </p><p>Suddenly a rush of warmth went through her, and a small smile formed on her lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jelame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelame/gifts).



Skye remembered the morning like it was yesterday.

She had been having a dream. The memory of that had faded of course, what the dream was, even whether it was a nightmare or a sweet dream, she had no idea. What she did remember though was waking up to a burning sensation on her right hip. It had hurt so badly she had let out a scream waking up the whole orphanage. The nuns had quickly rushed her off into a private room and ordered the other children back to bed. It wasn’t long until they noticed what was actually causing the pain.

She remembered looking up at them with fearful eyes as one of the nuns found strange markings on her hip. She thought they were going to punish her for writing on her skin.

Skye couldn’t see much of the markings from where she was laying, but it wasn’t long before she learned what they were.

A soulmate mark was rare. Only a few people in the world actually possessed them. The nuns were so happy for her, while Skye was so confused. A soulmate mark? She had a soulmate? There was someone out there who she was destined to be with? Eventually someone was going to want to be with her? What did those symbols even mean?

At least one of those questions were answered as one of the nuns had spent some time in China. Apparently the lines were a symbol for protection. The nun told her that meant her soulmate was a great protector.

Suddenly a rush of warmth went through her, and a small smile formed on her lips.

For many years, Skye turned to that mark for comfort. There were many a time when she would come back from her latest foster home that brought her back and just lay on her bed, gently stroking the mark. If no one else liked or wanted her, at least there would be one person who did someday.

It was comforting. It was nice thought, it always sent heat through her thinking about that fact. That there was someone out there that was going to love her one day.

Until she learned that wasn’t necessary true.

Skye ran away from the orphanage shortly after her seventeenth birthday. At that age she knew she didn’t want to finish high school, and thought she could make a decent enough living hacking. In that time she had never met another person, not even at the orphanage that had a soulmate mark. She was starting to think the nuns were crazy, and it was just a mark like any other that she had gotten somehow.

This was all before she met Timothy.

Timothy had been living on the streets as well, from around the same age as Skye had, but he was now nineteen. He found her rummaging through the donation center at a Goodwill and helped her out. For the next couple of weeks he let her crash on his couch. Skye was hesitant at first, but there was just something about him that had Skye trusting him. She liked to think that she had good instincts about people, and Timothy seemed all right. It wasn’t until her fourth night in his apartment when she saw the stars climbing up his left side. “Nice tattoo,” she had said appreciatively.

“It’s not a tattoo.”

Skye raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Ever heard of a soulmate mark?” He asked her without turning to face her.

Her mouth dropped. “You have one too?” Skye couldn’t stop the questions leaking out of her mouth then. She had never met someone else with one, and she just had so many things she wanted to ask. “Have you found them yet? What was it like? Is it all true? What they say?”

He held up a hand to stop her questions, and Skye quickly closed her mouth. “I found him. He didn’t want to accept it.” He answered simply.

That didn’t make sense to Skye. She had never heard anything that would make someone not want to accept their soulmate. It was something so rare and so incredible that made you feel so amazing, she didn’t understand why anyone would want to turn that down. “But … why would he do that?” She couldn’t help but ask.

It took several moments before he responded, and Skye found herself waiting on the edge of her seat. “He didn’t want to accept who he was.” He told her.

Suddenly it clicked with Skye what he meant.

He went on to describe to her how it felt. The aching hole inside of you that made it hard to breathe. The way that he never felt like an entire person. The way that every day he had to sit and live with the fact that the one person he was destined to be with, didn’t want that. Didn’t want anything to do with him.

Skye had never realized before that having a soulmate didn’t necessarily mean that they would want you, and you would live forever happily ever after.

At that moment she wasn’t so eager to find her soulmate anymore.

Of course fate never really cares if you want to find your soulmate or not, but Skye had certainly stopped looking when a man fitting the description tall, dark, and handsome to a “t” threw a bag on her head. She had heard accounts before that when you meet your soulmate, you just knew. You know that is the person that you are destined to be with. She found that wasn’t true. No, when she first meet Grant Ward she was more pissed at him than anything. Really, was the bag necessary? Wouldn’t a blindfold have worked just as well?

Then she started to get to know him. Underneath that sour face and brooding, there was a good man. A man that was willing to go to great lengths for his agency. A man that was willing to give up anything for what he thought was right. That was a sort of dedication that she saw on herself, and she couldn’t help to relate to him and his shitty childhood. It scared her a little. Not because she thought he was her soulmate. Honestly the thought had never crossed her mind. It scared her because she had never related to another human being like that before, and that was not what she was here for. She was not in S.H.I.E.L.D to make connections and friends. She was here to find her parents.

Of course it was pointless anyway. She couldn’t not care about the man who was turning into a father figure she had never known. She couldn’t help but admire the kick ass Asian woman who was more stoic than her S.O., not to mention the Science twins, always so welcoming and at each other’s side. Ward? That wasn’t even a possibility. After all, he had already dove in front of a bullet for them for God’s sakes.

Almost as soon as she was in Miles arms she regretted it.

She regretted it even more over the next few weeks until she was back in her S.O.s good graces. Looking back on it, when he jumped out of the plane for Simmons, she should have realized that if she had ever met a ‘great protector’ it was him, but she didn’t.

No, it wasn’t until much later when she was in a closet with him with almost no hope of either one of them making it out alive that she finally realized it. She was telling him not to go, she was telling him he had no chance when he spoke the words. “Skye, my name literally means ‘great protector’. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

The words clicked in her mind and before he could stop her, she had pulled his shirt up, and his pants down slightly to reveal his lower right hip. She stared at the words there. Her name, Skye, the letters in cursive, beginning and ending with what seemed to be the stem of a two daisy flowers.

Ward didn’t move, but she could feel his eyes on her face, and slowly she looked up to meet them before pulling him down for a bruising kiss, waiting for movement against her own lips before pulling away just slightly, her hands still clenching tightly at his shirt. “You better come back to me, because you have a lot of explaining to do.”

His answering grin was almost dazing. “Yes ma’am,” he said before running out the door and beating the shit of too many soldiers to count.

It was one of the longest minutes of Skye’s life.

Then Providence base happened.

Everything started out amazing. Well, as amazing as it could with a terrorist organization trying to take out her family, but Skye decided to take what happiness she could, and she did have things she could be happy about. Her team was safe, they were all alive and in a secure location.

And then there was the whole, she found her soulmate, thing. That was pretty nice and a huge weight lifted off her shoulders that she didn’t even know that she had until Grant had managed to fill that hole in her heart.

The happiness was almost overwhelming honestly. She was having to fight away a smile every time she looked at him, she found herself wanting to constantly be near him. She loved the protection that she got from him, and she loved the fact that the thought of him abandoning her never even crossed her mind. He had done so much for her, and she knew that all her dreams about soulmates had somehow come true for her. No more would she feel the fear of abandonment from not only family, thanks to her team, but from love was well.

She had a family, and she had her ‘great protector’. What else could she ask for?

Skye should have known it was too good to be true.

The next few days were almost like a daze. She didn’t ever really feel like they were happening. Really, she felt like she was in a nightmare that she couldn’t escape from. Skye had been heartbroken before, sure, but never like this. There was a bond between her and Ward, one she was sure would never be able to be broken. She had the symbols for his name on her hip, and it wasn’t like she was ever going to be able to get rid of that. She was just so hurt. She wanted to see him in pain. Skye wanted him to feel what she was feeling, the pain, the betrayal, the aching.

But she didn’t want him to die, and she couldn’t let Mike Peterson stop that heart, because thanks to fate, she still felt that damn connection to him, and when Mike stopped his heart … It felt like hers had stopped too. So she decrypted the drive, and Grant Ward lived to see another day.

A few days later, when Skye watched him being taken away in handcuffs, she refused to meet his gaze, instead focusing on Ace.

Skye was thankful May had fractured his larynx. That way he couldn’t say anything to her.

The next few weeks, Skye threw herself into her training. It was all she knew to do. It was the only thing that could keep her focused on anything other than the man she knew had been asking for her in a vault under the base. Coulson hadn’t been surprised to know that Grant had been asking for her since he assumed something had been going on between the two of them, but he had no idea how strong the connection actually was. In fact Skye hadn’t even really known just how strong it could be until she felt it.

She was in the middle of doing what she had been doing for months now, training, when it hit her. It wasn’t a sharp stinging pain, no, it was slow, agonizing, and took Skye’s breath away. She tried to push it away, focus, but eventually her legs went out from under her from the pressure as it felt like part of her chest was literally being pulled out of her body gradually and torturously. She could faintly hear May calling out to her, asking if she was okay, but the blood was pounding in her ears as tears fled through her eyes and an eerie calm swept over her. “Ward,” she managed to say once she was able to force some air through her lungs. After a few seconds she could stand. “I’ve got – something’s wrong with Ward,” She muttered and ignoring May’s calls stumbled out of the gym and towards the vault.

It was like the closer she got to him, the more urgent she felt. Something was very, very wrong, she could feel it, and she needed to help him. Damn everything he had done, she could not let him die because she was sure that was what was happening. He was dying.

It was one time she wished she would have been wrong.

There wasn’t a single moment when she even hesitated to bring down the barrier, sending out a distress signal on the tablet as she ran to him. It didn’t take her long to find the slit wrist, a paper and button not far away from him. “Grant … oh god you idiot.” She murmured to his seemingly unconscious body, clamping her hand down on the scratch to try and slow the bleeding. “You have too much to make up to me, you do not get to die like this.” She added, squeezing tight.

All of the sudden as she watched Grant’s blood flowing through her fingers, it was like she faded from the world around her, and instead visions began flashing through her mind. It was like someone was flipping through TV channels in her head, and if that wasn’t startling enough, it wasn’t visions from her life.

It was visions from Grant’s.

First it was a mother, slapping him around the face and ordering him to bed without dinner for a broken lamp. Next was a father, telling him how much of a disappointment he was to the family, then an older brother, pushing a younger one into a well, a lady in a suit explaining to a teacher that the bruises were an accident and that she should forget about them, a frantic sister yelling that he was going to kill Thomas, a fire, a younger Garrett offering a broken boy the chance of freedom, cuddling with a dog in the woods while rain poured around –

Skye was pushed away and the flashes stopped immediately. One of the medics had moved her aside to tie up Grant’s wrist while he was loaded onto a gurney. She just watched, her heart pounding heavily as the visions played in the back of her mind once more.

She didn’t know how long she sat there in Vault D, thinking of everything she had seen, and if it was possible it was true. Skye supposed if she lived in a world where soulmate marks appear, anything could be possible right?

She stood up slowly, ignoring the cramps in her legs as she did so.

Skye had some research to do.

It was a day later when Grant woke up to Skye by his bedside with a tablet in her hands, focused solely on the words in front of her. Or well, she seemed to be. “Finally decide to wake up?” She said only a few moments after he opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” He croaked. She supposed his throat was still recovering from May’s beating. Or he could just be thirsty.

“Reading unfiled police reports from your childhood.” She answered him simply.

She figured she must have really surprised him, because he just kind of stared at her.

“It’s interesting.” She said after it became clear he wasn’t going to speak again. “I found lots of charges for different things against your parents, but nothing was ever filed … Not to mention several teachers notes mentioning their worry for child abuse, but once again … nothing ever really came from it.” Skye finally shut the screen off her tablet off and turned to him. “And there’s a strange five year period where you seemed to just drop off the world. Want to tell me about that?” She asked curiously, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Why are you doing this? You hate me.” He evaded.

“I don’t hate you.” She said before she could stop herself. “Wait, no I hate you some. Probably not as much as you think. The fact is … we always preach about second chances and for the longest time … I’ve been telling myself you don’t deserve a second chance. Not after all you’ve done, and you have done some horrible, horrible things.” Skye told him, not beating around the bush. “Then today, I saw you. Bleeding out in front of me, and God it felt like -”

“-A part of you had been ripped out of your chest.”

This time it was her turn to look surprised.

“When you got shot … I felt it too.” He added on, rubbing rather anxiously at his arm.

A soulmate thing she guessed. She was going to ignore that though. “This isn’t just about us being … you know. Actually, I guess it kind of is since I doubt if it was anyone else I would have had visions about their past-”

“You had -”

“Visions of your past, yeah, I know, weird.” She shook her head slightly. “The things I saw Ward … If any of them are true, and now I know they are, you need help.”

“You’re just now realizing that?” Ward said with a bitter laugh.

“No, I mean … that didn’t come out right.” Skye ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “I was trying to say that I … I kind of understand. Not fully … but enough to know that I think you deserve an opportunity to get some real help and a real chance.” She told him.

Once again, his gaze drove through her before he turned away. “Like Coulson’s going to agree to that anyway.”

“He already has.” She watched as his head snapped back to her. “Under strict, strict, observation of course. Required sessions with therapists, absolutely no trips outside your designated space, and a tracking bracelet, but you get a slightly better cell, and I’ll be your handler.”

“Coulson’s going to let you be my handler after he knows about -“

“He doesn’t.” Skye interrupted. “May suspects something, but I haven’t told anyone.”

“Guess you didn’t want anyone to know your soulmate was a ‘Nazi traitor’.” Grant said in a slightly snappish tone.

“This is beside the point. You’re getting a chance here, Grant. A chance to be a ‘great protector’ for the right reasons. Are you going to take it or not?” She asked him.

The silence was too long. It was too loud, and Skye could hear her own heart beeping in her ears while she waited for him to speak.

“I don’t have much of a choice do I?” He finally spoke.

And really Skye wouldn’t have given him one anyway. “Good decision.” With a small smile, Skye stood up, tucking her tablet under her arm. “You’ve still got another day in observation, but after that, I’ll be here to get you.” It was only when she was almost out the door when she remembered. “Oh, and Grant? Merry Christmas.” She said before leaving.

She didn’t see his smile.

Two years later though, all she was seeing was smiles as she watched him playing with the new puppy on the floor, rubbing his belly. An affectionate smile made its way onto Skye’s own lips as she moved into the floor as well, leaning against the back of the couch.

Her movement caught his specialist gaze, and he leaned back towards her, the puppy, upset with the loss of attention, climbed straight into his lap as he leaned against the couch beside Skye. “What are you thinking about?” He asked her.

Skye leaned her head against his shoulder, snuggling into him as she felt his arm wrap around her, his thumb gently caressing the mark on her hip, a habit he had picked up over the past year. “How long it took us to get here.” She answered honestly.

His hand stilled for a moment at his next question. “Was it worth it?” Grant asked quietly, burying his face in her hair, almost as if he was afraid to look at her.

Grant didn’t need to be. “You’re always worth it.” Skye answered, moving her head to kiss his shoulder briefly before nuzzling back into his neck.

Really, her soulmate always had been.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my secret santa gift, and I hope you all enjoy! Please feel free to leave comments or kudos!


End file.
